Hominid

by R. D. Brady

  Tess pulled him closer as his yells turned to sobs. Tess felt tears crest in her own eyes. She had hated doing it. But it was either the bear or Mikey.

  Holding Mikey, she kept her eyes on the bear. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said, knowing she was apologizing to both of them.

  CHAPTER 21

  Tess called Madge to let her know that Mikey had been found. Then she carried him away from the mother bear, pulled Mikey into her lap, and waited for the search party to reach them. The two cubs walked over to the mother as they left, nudging her with their snouts. Tess’s heart ached at the sight. And every time she looked over and saw them trying to get their mother to respond, her guilt increased.

  Fifteen minutes later, she could hear the yells as the search party made their way to them.

  “We’re here!” she yelled. Footsteps pounded toward them. Mike burst through the trees. He stopped short, looking between Mikey and Tess. “He’s okay?”

  “He’s okay. Just a little shook up and sad,” Tess said.

  Mike knelt down next to them, putting his hand on Mikey’s back. “Sad?”

  Tess gestured down the gully to where the bear lay.

  Mike went pale. “Oh my God.” He yanked Mikey to him, but his eyes—suddenly terrified—stayed on Tess. “Thank you.”

  Tess laid a hand on Mikey’s back. “He doesn’t understand why the bear was shot. You’ll need to explain it to him—if you can.”

  Mike stood unsteadily. “I’m going to take him to Mom’s.”

  “I’ll finish up here, then I’ll head there and we can talk.”

  “Thank you, Tess. I don’t know what I would have done…” Mike blinked the tears out of his eyes.

  Tess placed a hand on his arm. “He’s okay. Just focus on that.”

  Mike gave her an abrupt nod and headed back the way he’d arrived.

  Dev walked up. “Good thing you were out here.”

  “More than you know.” She nudged her chin toward the bear.

  Dev’s mouth fell open. “Are you all right?”

  Despite still feeling shaky, Tess nodded. “There are two cubs. Mikey wanted to see them. Can you call PAWS? See if they can come out and take care of the little ones?” The Performing Animal Welfare Society’s mission was to aid and rescue abused, abandoned, or retired large animals.

  “Yeah, I’ll make the call in a minute.” He pulled Tess into his arms. A shudder ran through her, and for just a moment, she let herself bury her head in his chest and borrow his strength.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Dev asked quietly.

  Tess just nodded again, and Dev’s arms tightened around her. They stayed like that for a few seconds before Tess pulled away. She looked away from the carnage and stared at the ridge above. “I’m okay.”

  “You did the right thing, Tess.”

  She watched the little cubs. “Then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

  Movement at the top of the ridge drew Tess’s attention. Another dark shadow disappeared behind a tree. She went still.

  Dev pulled out his radio. “I’ll call this in.”

  Tess barely heard him, her eyes focused on where the shape had disappeared. “I’m going to go up top.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll find you.”

  She quickly made her way out of the gully and up to the ridge. She walked along the top, her eyes scanning the ground in front of her. She was worried that what she’d seen was another bear.

  Ten feet from where she’d seen the shadow, she spotted a heel print. It was easily eight inches wide. Could be a bear.

  Carefully, she made her way forward. At the base of a Douglas fir, she saw another partial print. She turned and saw another a few feet away, this one a full print. Another five feet beyond that was its companion. Whatever had made these marks had an almost sixty-inch stride. And as she eyeballed the prints, she knew they were at least sixteen inches long.

  Tess’s excitement began to grow. A bear didn’t make these.

  She got out her gear and began taking pictures. Then she mixed the cement and poured it in the prints to make the casts. As she sat there, waiting for it to dry, she knew she’d see a healed scar on the bottom of the foot.

  But why is he out here? And why let himself be seen?

  Tess listened, but only the normal sounds of the forest reached her ears. A chill crawled along her skin.

  And why does he seem to be so interested in me?

  CHAPTER 22

  Scottsdale, Arizona

  Carter placed the latest report from Tess on his desk. He turned his chair and stared out the window. She’s getting closer.

  Excitement began to hum through him—not an emotion he was used to. There was no challenge in business anymore. When he’d first begun, there was the thrill of the hunt and the success. But now he took little pleasure in the increasing numbers in his bank account.

  He wanted something new. He wanted to forge into uncharted waters and be the first to uncover something.

  But there were so few chances to be an explorer these days. Magellan, Marco Polo, Columbus, Lewis and Clark—their days were long gone. Now it was space that held the opportunity for explorers, and Carter had never had any interest in space, or in plumbing the depths of the ocean for that matter. But he’d always dreamed of being on the frontier in discovering unknown aspects of this planet: Shangri-La, lost dinosaurs, bigfoot. And now that last possibility was tantalizingly within his reach.

  Bigfoot—a ten-foot primate, North America’s great ape. He would be P.T. Barnum and Thomas Edison rolled into one—the great discoverer and the man who promoted that discovery to the world. And his name would go down in history, just as theirs had.

  He knew discovering the beast was a long shot. But in the business world he’d often turned long shots into guarantees.

  He turned back to the desk and tapped his call button for Thaddeus. Thaddeus opened the door a few seconds later, striding across the room.

  “Sir?”

  “What is the status of the equipment for Project Legacy?” Carter asked.

  “It’s going well, for the most part.”

  Carter frowned. “‘For the most part’? What does that mean?”

  “The engineers are having some difficulties making the cages as strong as you want them. They believe the strength you’re requesting is overkill.”

  But they don’t understand, do they? He’d contracted to have the cages built strong enough to withstand a raging elephant times two. Of course, he hadn’t told them what quarry he intended to hold in those cells.

  “Tell them I don’t pay them to question why. Tell them to just build it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In fact, move the deadline up.” Carter smiled. “I think we may need them sooner than originally planned.”

  From the blog Bigfoot Among Us by Dr. Tess Brannick

  This week’s question comes from Shirley Jones in Little Rock, Arkansas. Shirley writes:

  Isn’t bigfoot just a modern creation?

  No, actually tales of bigfoot date back hundreds of years. In fact, a bigfoot-like creature first appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The ancient Mesopotamian poem is dated at around 2100 BC. But as it recounts a Noah-like tale of a great flood, some scholars place it at closer to 10,000 years old.

  According to the tale, Gilgamesh was a powerful but arrogant king who was lonely. Enkidu was a wild man who was created by the gods as a companion for him. In the tales, Enkidu was covered in hair and lived with and protected the animals of the forest. Gilgamesh was viewed as an extremely powerful being—one third man and two thirds god. Enkidu, by contrast, was said to be one third man and two thirds beast. Yet in power, they were said to be evenly matched. And the two became inseparable friends until Enkidu’s death.

  There are other old tales about bigfoot, but that is the oldest one I have found.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tess sat at her camp, struggling to figure out what was going on. It had been a week sinc
e she had found Mikey. The cubs had been brought to the rescue shelter and were reportedly doing well. Another female black bear had taken them under her wing.

  And Tess had gone back to her regular activities. She did her usual chores, found a few more prints. But when she’d gone to leave more food, she’d found a pile of acorns waiting for her—as if someone was now leaving her food.

  And then, last night, she had decided to sleep outside. And she could have sworn she felt someone or something tap her shoulder late at night. She’d jolted awake, but there was no one there. She’d stayed awake long after that—feeling like she waiting for something, although she didn’t know what it was—before returning to an uneasy sleep.

  Now she sat in her camp, leaning against a log with her sketchpad propped on her knees. She’d already drawn the cubs, Mikey, Madge, and Shelby, and she was working on a picture of her and Pax from when they were younger. But it was getting late, and she didn’t plan on spending a second night out here.

  “Anybody here?” she asked quietly. Of course, no one answered.

  She shook her head and got to her feet with a sigh. Okay, enough. Time to go. She put her sketchbook into her bag.

  A small rock landed two feet to her right. Tess went still.

  She stared at the rock, her heart pounding. Rock throwing—a behavior associated with bigfoot. Okay, this is what you’ve trained for. Focus. But all her well-laid plans for how to deal with an encounter seemed to disappear from her brain.

  She picked up the rock. A second rock flew out of the forest, landing three feet to her left this time. Tess didn’t feel any threat from the rock thrower. The rocks were being lobbed gently, not aimed at her. She strained to see into the woods, but she couldn’t make out anything of interest.

  Well, okay. Tess took a breath and then threw the rock underhanded back into the woods. There was a silence, and then another rock landed almost at her feet. Tess smiled and let out a little laugh. Picking it up, she threw it. Thirty seconds later, a new rock landed again at her feet.

  We’re playing, she thought with disbelief.

  They repeated the same pattern for a while: a rock would land at her feet and Tess would toss it back. But then, finally, after about five minutes, she tossed a rock and there was no response.

  Tess felt disappointed. She thought about chucking another rock, but it felt as if the rules of the game had already been laid out and that would be a violation. So she waited. Leaves rustled, and Tess turned slightly to her right.

  It stepped out and looked at her for only a moment before disappearing back into the woods.

  Tess stumbled back, her legs feeling woozy. The creature was gone, but its appearance was permanently imprinted in her mind. It had a wide flat nose and deep-set eyes. Hair covered its upper body—due to an evergreen she could only see from its chest up. Dark hair rimmed its face, and it had what almost appeared to be a beard and mustache. But there was no hair surrounding the eyes, nose, or mouth. What skin she could see was wrinkled and dark.

  And it was close to nine feet tall.

  CHAPTER 24

  Tess wasn’t sure how long she sat there and stared at the space where the bigfoot had appeared. Ever since she was a kid, she had been focused on tracking down bigfoot and learning as much as she could about them. But to be honest, she’d never thought she’d really see one. She figured she’d use her science background to bring a higher level of analysis to the evidence they left behind: footprints, hair samples, and the like.

  But now she had actually seen one. And her mind—her well-trained scientific mind—couldn’t process it. She had known it would be tall, but she hadn’t been prepared for how wide it was—at least four feet, with a large barrel chest and no noticeable neck. It was truly a monster, and yet—

  It had played a game with her. It had shown itself to her. Was it the one that had been nearby when she’d found Mikey? Come to think of it, if it hadn’t alerted her to its presence, she would have kept walking right past Mikey. Had it done that on purpose? Had he led her to Mikey?

  Shadows began to fall across the camp, spurring Tess into motion. She shoved her provisions into her pack and grabbed her flashlight, then made her way over to where she had seen the… She hesitated. The what? Beast? That word didn’t feel right.

  She scanned the ground with her light, but there was no indentation. The soil was dry, and there was a lot of ground cover. She frowned. But it had to have been at least seven hundred, maybe eight hundred pounds, walking on two legs. It should have left an impression.

  She looked around and listened carefully, but she saw no movement, and only the normal sounds of the forest echoed back to her. She considered following in the direction it had disappeared. But with darkness approaching, she knew that wasn’t the best idea. And despite its size, it moved soundlessly. And it left little to no trail. She hated to leave, but she knew that was the wisest course of action.

  With one last look around, she stood, hiking her pack onto her shoulders and securing it. She was done for today.

  But I’ll be back first thing in the morning.

  CHAPTER 25

  The next morning, Tess returned straight away to her camp. The first thing she noticed was the pile of rocks arranged in the middle of the space. She looked around, but she didn’t see anyone. Removing her camera from her pack, she took pictures of the little pile. Then she sat back and grinned.

  Tess went about her normal routine—dropping off the food stores and checking some of the cameras. She still had no pictures of the creature, and she was beginning to think that was because the surviving cameras were in the places the bigfoot weren’t. Any cameras placed where she might get a shot were destroyed.

  Back at her camp, she sat at her laptop, answered some emails, and wrote up some ideas for a new blog post and for a paper. She was about an hour into her paper when she got that strange feeling of being watched. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. Slowly, she closed the laptop, stood up, and scanned the area. She saw nothing until the rock came sailing from the woods. It hit the ground and rolled to a stop at her feet.

  Tess picked up the rock and, with a practiced throw, lobbed it back into the woods. A few seconds later, another rock came sailing at her. Tess smiled.

  She picked up the rock and tossed it back. A series of tosses and returns came after that, until, just like the day before, Tess threw the rock back and there was no response. Disappointment washed over her. He was leaving. She looked around, waiting, but he didn’t show himself this time. No rustling of leaves, no flying rocks. No appearance of a legendary creature.

  Finally, Tess took her seat again at the table with a sigh. She had no right to be disappointed. Her exchange over the last two days was more than most researchers experienced in a lifetime.

  She pulled over her laptop and tried to focus on it. She scrolled back a few pages to what she had written before the rock toss. The paper detailed the theorized anatomical differences between the ape, human, and bigfoot that allowed for bipedalism—or in the ape’s case, limited bipedalism.

  Her eyes kept traveling back to the woods. After the fifth stolen glance, she gave herself a firm shake. You are a scientist. Focus.

  But she couldn’t help but steal one last look.

  Her heart slammed to stop. And then it began to race.

  He was back. And this time he was standing only fifteen feet away.

  CHAPTER 26

  Tess’s mind went blank, and at the same time, she was soaking in every single detail. He was close to nine feet tall, with a barrel chest, just as she remembered. He didn’t have any breasts, which convinced her that he was male, although the definitive evidence of that was not clearly in view.

  What she hadn’t seen last night was that his legs were shorter than his arms, which hung halfway down his thighs. His feet were long and squat, with incredibly long toes, just like the prints she’d found.

  Dark hair mixed with gray covered him except for the palms of
his very large hands and around his eyes, nose, and mouth. The gray hair brought her up short. Was it a sign of age? She thought of the Yeti. Were they related? Was the Yeti always white, or was it, too, an older animal?

  His eyes were a deep brown, and intelligence lurked behind them. They seemed to be inspecting her just as closely as she inspected him.

  Last night, Tess had imagined what she would do if she actually had a chance to meet one, to speak with one. Slowly, she stood. “Hi.”

  It tilted its head, watching her. With careful moves, Tess reached into the basket she’d left on the table and pulled out two apples. She showed them to him and then, walking slowly forward, she placed them both on the end of the log that served as seating for her fire.

  She backed away and gestured toward the apples. “For you.”

  His eyes shifted between Tess and the apples. Finally he took the apples, and then in two strides disappeared back into the woods.

  Tess’s legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground. She brought her hand to her mouth. Oh my God. Then she grinned and wrapped her hands around herself. Oh my God.

  CHAPTER 27

  Tess sat on the ground for a good long time. Her mind couldn’t stop analyzing everything she’d seen in her short encounter—or didn’t see.

  The bigfoot hadn’t been aggressive; he had let himself be seen. He wanted her to know he was there. And yet, there’d been no odor. Did that mean they could control it? Turn it on and off like a switch?

  Mountain gorillas were said to emit a fear odor. Was that what the bigfoot emitted? Did that mean it was more like an ape?